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If federal protections are lifted, state fish and game agencies—too often in the grip of trophy hunting, trapping, and ranching interests who possess an irrational hatred of wolves—would be free to authorize the following methods:
- Steel-jaw traps that maim wolves, causing animals to chew at their legs to escape the vise grip.
- Neck snares that strangle the victim, inducing a “jelly head” effect (a lack of oxygen and vascular damage that causes the brain to swell and hemorrhage).
- Packs of hounds unleashed to attack wolves in open-air animal fights, with all of the carnage you’d see in a fighting pit in a staged battle.
- 24-hour hunts, even using night-vision equipment after darkness falls and year-round killing seasons with no limits.
- Even the ramming and crushing of wolves with snowmobiles—exposed not long ago in Wyoming.
These are not alarmist or far-fetched worst-case scenarios. Those cruel methods have been put to use with ruthless effect when federal protections were removed in a few states. It’s a preview of things to come if H.R. 845 passes.
We’ve Seen the Ugly Aftermath of Delisting in Four States
After Congress stripped protections from wolves in the Northern Rockies in 2012—the first time Congress ever intervened in listing or delisting actions—state lawmakers unleashed the attacks on wolves. It was bad in Montana, but wolf treatment was even worse in Idaho—where wolves can be hunted with hounds and killed year-round—and in Wyoming, which imposes no limits on wolf killings and where Cody Roberts rammed and crushed an adolescent wolf with a snowmobile, horrifying people across the state and the nation.
When federal protections were briefly lifted in the Upper Great Lakes, Wisconsin lawmakers mandated hounding, neck snares, and midnight hunts. In February 2021, hunters and trappers slaughtered 180 wolves in just 24 hours, double the state’s own quota. We stopped that carnage only by winning in state court and then reinforcing those victories in federal court.
The debate in Congress is poised to occur even after repeated rulings by federal courts warning the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that controls in the states are insufficient and that their actions could threaten to kill off wolves.
And this debate often comes without a whiff of acknowledgment that wolves deliver so many positive things to ecosystems and even rural economies.
Wolves selectively prey on sick and weakened deer and elk, helping slow the spread of chronic wasting disease, a fatal, brain-wasting illness now found in dozens of states and widely regarded as an existential threat to hunting. By regulating deer and elk populations, wolves also reduce overbrowsing of forests and crops and help limit the toll of deer-vehicle collisions that kill hundreds of people and cause billions of dollars in damage each year.
Wolves also suppress coyote populations, which expand rapidly when wolves are eliminated. Coyotes take 14 times more livestock than wolves nationwide—and that means that wiping out wolves may exacerbate the rare cases of wildlife predation on sheep and calves. Wolves keep the balance and almost always stick to killing their traditional prey.
In addition to these ecological benefits, wolves generate tens of millions of dollars annually for rural communities by attracting wildlife watchers and ecotourists from around the world.
Please act now. The House vote on H.R. 845 is scheduled for 2 p.m.
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